//------------------------------//
// Changelings: Are They Amongst Us? 
// Story: Return to Equestria: The Rise of Roam 
// by Daniel-Gleebits 
//------------------------------//

Return to Equestria: The Rise of Roam

Sunset Shimmer


“Move.”
Sunset barely heard the command.
“Get out of the way!” Script shouldered her out of the way. His horn ignited. Sunset’s heart leapt into her throat.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t remember... how to do it...” Sonata mumbled, her lips barely moving. 
Script didn’t reply, but the ribbons of magical power began to spiral around his horn. The light was strong and hard like shining diamonds.
“No, stop!” Sunset cried. Unable to summon her own magic, she rammed him hard in the side. With a snarl he glared at her. “You’re not hurting her!”
“Are you brain dead?” Script asked impatiently. “Don’t you see that thing around her neck?”
“What of it?”
“Stop being dense!” Script stomped a hoof. “Stand aside now.”
“No!”
“You think you’re being kind?” Script inquired scathingly. “I’ve studied magic probably longer than you’ve been alive. I know a curse when I see one, and to actually manifest a physical embodiment...” He glared at the red stone. “You’ll only prolong her suffering and make her a danger to everypony.”
“Suffering?” Sunset demanded. “I’ve seen her curse before in full force.”
“Then you know the danger it poses!” Script exclaimed.
“Yes, I do. And you’re not harming her.” 
They both stood apart, glaring at each other. Sonata sat, her eyes focused on nothing, seemingly insensible to the argument.
“And what’s to stop me simply moving you?” Script asked, his voice quiet and waspish. “You can’t use your magic with a succendum field in effect, but I can. I could disable or even kill you, and then dispose of her. Problem solved.”
Sunset couldn’t repress a slight shiver. He was right of course; she was powerless right now, and he knew why. Something called a ‘succendum field’, whatever that was. She considered asking him what it was to play for time, but she got the impression he wasn’t the type to be distracted so easily unless there was something he cared about involved. Then it occurred to her.
“What was that crystal bone?”
Script’s eyes narrowed. “Do not try to delay me. Move, now, or I move you myself.”
“That crystal caused this to happen!” Sunset shouted. “It’s your fault. I won’t let Sonata take the fall for your mistake.”
“My mistake!?” Script looked like he was going to choke. Rage suffused his cold expression. “You’ve ruined my research, destroyed whatever hope I had to discover the truth, and you dare to say that it’s my fault?” He advanced a step, his green eyes cold and hard. “I’ll take your refusal to move as a final decision on your part to die with her.”
“I can help you with your research!” Sunset cried in desperation. Script’s horn began to glow again. “Please don’t hurt her!”
“One shouldn’t be afraid to sacrifice for the greater good,” Script said icily, the room bathed in the sky-blue light emanating from the ribbons of power spiralling around his horn.
If Sunset hadn’t felt an overwhelming sense of terror at that particular moment, she might have gaped at just how cheesy that statement was. As things stood however, Sonata was going to be killed; she couldn’t let it happen! With her eyes closed against the bright light, she gabbled “Why kill us when I can help you?”
“And how can a pair of Equestrian spies help me?” Script asked dismissively.
“I’m not a spy, I’m a student of magic! I studied under Princess Celestia!”
To her surprise, she detected a decrease of light through her eyelids, and tentatively opened one eye. 
“Celestia?” Script muttered. 
“Yes, I—“ Sunset went on, but then stopped as Script turned abruptly away. As Sunset watched, nonplussed, he made an entire line of books fly off of one shelf, until he found one that he apparently had been looking for. A large brown book, dusty with age, Sunset just about made out some kind of orange symbol on the front.
“Sunset Shimmer,” Script said, trotting back over, frowning at the open page. 
“Yes?” Sunset answered warily.
“This is you?” he asked, turning the book around. 
Sunset blinked down at the page, and her heart skipped a beat.
“My journal!” she exclaimed, pulling it out of its levitation. “This is—“ she looked at the front cover again. Wiping away some of the dust, she now made out what was clearly Princess Celestia’s cutie mark. “How did you get this?”
“I salvaged all of these books from the Friendship Castle,” Script said, looking over her shoulder at the journal. “This one I found in the throne room next to—“
“A mirror?” Sunset asked, eager to keep him interested and away from thoughts of cold-blooded murder.
“Yes.” Script gave his beard a scratch. “I’m finding that I might just believe you a little,” he said, as though the notion was an amusing one. “If you are the same Sunset Shimmer as in this journal, then it stands to reason that everything you’ve told me is true. Except that I don’t see how you can be, seen as you’re so young.”
“What are you talking about?” Sunset demanded.
“The last entry actually written by Sunset Shimmer was written,” he breathed, flipping the page and indicating the date, “ some seventy five years ago.”
“Seventy—“ Sunset held the page closer to her eye, her heart freezing in her chest. “What year is it now?” She gaped as Script told her. “But... how is that...” 
She couldn’t understand it. It made no sense. She looked to Sonata instinctively. 
“I don’t know,” she said tremulously when Sunset asked her what she thought. If Sunset had felt bad before, she descended a level or two more at the sound of Sonata’s voice. It reminded her forcefully of what seemed so long ago, when she’d found Sonata on the roof of her old apartment. It was the same defeated, miserable tone, as though all hope had gone from the world. 
“Look, it’ll be okay,” Sunset said in what she hoped was a rousing tone. “We got rid of that dumb rock before, and we’ll do it again.”
This seemed to give Sonata pause. Sunset sat next to her and held her close; she knew how mercurial Sonata could be at times, and knew that if she could head off certain feelings at the pass... and sure enough.
“I guess you’re right,” she said with a sniff. She wiped her eyes swiftly and drew in a deep breath. “We got this, right? No problem. Just a stupid rock. Just a stupid rock.” Sonata repeated this a few times, as though she was psyching herself up. Her voice was still tremulous and worried, but it was better than her staring mortified into some unseen abyss.
“Just a rock?” Script said incredulously, a tremor of laughter in his voice. “That’s not just a—“ 
“Shut up!” Sunset snapped.
“He’s right!” Sonata erupted, bursting into tears.
“For Celestia’s sake!” Sunset glared at Script. 
“You think you’re doing her any favours by coddling her like that?” Script asked derisively, as Sunset gave him the evil eye and Sonata dissolved into tears. 
“Giving her hope isn’t coddling her!” Sunset hissed.
“An optimist,” Script sneered. “You. Weeping, cursed, siren-creature.”
“Me?” Sonata asked, hiccupping.
“No, no, the other cursed pony,” Script said breezily. “Of course you! Get over here.”
“Siren?” Sunset repeated, giving Script an appraising look. “How do you—“
“I’ve read every single one of these books,” Script interrupted, waving around at the shelves. “Every single one. You wrote some very telling things in this journal of yours.” He tapped the cover of the journal in question, and then turned to give Sonata a cold stare as she approached. “Where I’m from, we euthanize the cursed, both for their good and those around them. I have a feeling that I’m going to regret letting you live, but if it means completing my research, I ask that you bear the weight of your inevitable doom for a while longer.”
“We broke her curse before,” Sunset intervened. “What would you know of curses if you come from a culture where you murder anypony afflicted with one?”
“Murder?” Sonata squeaked. 
“They’re put down because we know about curses. You didn’t break her curse, otherwise it wouldn’t be here.”
“But my pendant was broken before,” Sonata objected, still sounding rather frightened.
Script paused. One of his tufted ears flicked, and his black-rimmed eyes shot upwards. Above them, thudding dully on the high ceiling, was the sound of hoofsteps. Many hoofsteps. Script eyed the ceiling for a moment and then looked back.
“There’s only three ways to get rid of a curse permanently. You personally kill the one who cursed you, or they release you voluntarily from it.”
“And what’s the third?” Sonata asked hopefully. She shuddered a little at the look Script gave her.
“You die,” he said simply. “Which is of course why most curses have some sort of life-extending properties. The worst curse you with immortality.” He moved forward a step and gave Sonata’s broken leg a sharp kick. She cried out automatically, but then stopped, looking down at it in shock.
“Sunset!” she whispered, as Sunset squared up to Script, her eyes blazing. “My leg... it’s not broken anymore.”
“But that’s...” Sunset muttered, looking at the leg herself and tugging the bandages away. “There’s not even a scar.” 
“You know the Equestrian Princesses if this journal is anything to be believed,” Script said, regarding Sunset shrewdly. “The Friendship Princess at least. And you were a student of Celestia. I’ll make you an offer; you get me in to see an Equestrian Princess – any of them will do – and I’ll not kill her. Do we have a deal?” Script asked, looking at Sunset inquiringly. 
Sunset snorted so hard and loudly that she actually hurt her sinuses. “Excuse me? I help you, and you don’t murder my marefriend?” She told Script to go do something that made Sonata raise her eyebrows sharply.
“Am I to take that as a no?” Script said, sighing loudly. “My social skills were never really any good. I suppose my offer really is more the line of an ultimatum, isn’t it? How about this then; you’ll be wanting to research some way of helping your marefriend out of her situation, I imagine? Well, despite the utter uselessness of it, I’ll help you.”
“Help us break the curse permanently?” Sunset asked quickly.
“Yes,” Script sighed again. “I did mention the only known means by which a curse can be lifted, yes?”
“That just gives us something to work with,” Sunset said, her voice hard.
Script smiled, a one-sided smile that went all up one side of his face. “Oh, I like you. You have a scientist’s mind.”
Sunset was spared choosing an appropriately filthy look to throw at him by the loud sound of splintering wood. All three of them looked up in alarm.
“Impossible!” Script exclaimed. “My concealment spell should—“ his head spun to the remnants of crystal on the floor. He swore under his breath.
“What’s going on?” Sonata asked, blinking as a cloud of dust and wooden splinters erupted into the room at the top of the stairs.
“Over there!” Script ordered in a carrying whisper. “And quiet!”
“Here?” Sunset asked, moving over to the book shelf Script had indicated. 
“Yes,” Script replied, giving his horn a wave. Every book on every shelf, and on the floor, except for the shelf that Sunset and Sonata stood next to, vanished, as ribbons of magical energy curled over them. Then Script waved his horn again in a more complicated manner, and the books on the final shelf shimmered out of sight.
“I can hear somepony coming,” Sunset said nervously. “Soldiers?”
“Yes,” Script answered tersely. “They’ll be on us any second.”
“So how do we—“ Sunset never finished her question. Without warning, Script launched forward, and shoved the two of them roughly backwards into the shelf. Sunset tensed her shoulders, preparing for the inevitable hard contact with the shelf, imagining the individual book-rests jabbing hard into her back. And then everything went dark as fast as a light bulb going. Sunset felt herself hit the dusty floor, and for a second couldn’t understand what had happened. 
A faint blue light shimmered to life above her in the darkness as the smell of fresh earth invaded her nostrils. Sunset blinked and looked around, and found herself in a curiously straight and shapely underground tunnel. She frowned.
“How did we get here?” she asked no one in particular, looking around in confusion.
“The shelf was false,” Script whispered. “It was just an illusion, hiding this exit tunnel. They won’t find it at least until we’re long gone.”
“You built an escape tunnel?” Sunset asked incredulously. “Are you one of those mad-scientist types with an emergency escape plan set up before hand in every situation?”
“Actually this tunnel was here before I moved in, much like that underground room,” Script explained. “Changelings dug it out years ago. You notice the hexagon-shape of the tunnel?”
“That’s not possible,” Sunset said immediately. “Changelings don’t burrow this far north of the Badlands.” She paused as Script gave her a somewhat superior look. “You drove them out.”
“Not exactly,” Script shrugged. “But some rats tend to escape a sinking ship even when the rest drown. And let’s be clear,” he said, as Sunset felt revulsion boil up in the pit of her stomach at his callous analogy. “I did nothing.”
“But your country did,” Sunset surmised. “Is that what your country does to changelings? Genocide?”
“Historically,” Script said airily. “Now, I do believe that the way to the Twin Becks is this way.”
“What if we run into changelings?” Sonata asked.
“I doubt it,” Script said, shrugging. “I’ve never met any down here. It’s probably abandoned.”
“Probably?” Sonata repeated uneasily. 
“So many things have changed,” Sunset said faintly. “It seems impossible that any of this is real.”
“Believe it,” Script chuckled. “Oh, we have to talk, you and I. It’d be fascinating to know what Equestria was like before the invasion. This way, this way, we have a ways to go.”
Led by the blue light of his horn, Sunset and Sonata followed Script through the tunnel, hoping he knew where he was going. Despite the relative elegance of the tunnel, it split off in many different ways, sometimes leading deeper, other times high, and sometimes in contrary directions. There was no randomness to them however; Sunset’s keen eye and mind for spotting patterns figured out rather quickly that the seemingly labyrinthine system of tunnels were in fact well laid out to aid a knowledgeable traveller reach their destination more directly. Each intersection was a crossroad intended for individuals with the ability to fly. At one intersection the three found themselves staring up in wonder at a tree-shaped structure of hexagonal tunnels all branching off from a central hollow, like some great, three-dimensional crossroad.
Somewhat to Sunset’s surprise and delight, she felt a sort of pressure in her head that she hadn’t even noticed was there lift, and her horn sparked. She flared it, and without any fuss whatsoever, it ignited, casting healthy green light over their surroundings.
She was just beginning to properly appreciate having the use of her magic again, when she jumped and looked around as she heard a loud cracking sound. Sonata had leapt back against the wall, staring down at a large crack in the floor. Even as they watched by the green light of Sunset’s horn, the crack widened, deepened, and then the floor fell away.
“Try to remember that these tunnels were made for creatures that can fly,” Script said, supremely unconcerned by the near-accident. “Some of the floors probably aren’t entirely solid.”
“Are you sure that you know where we’re going?” Sunset asked as Script marched purposefully on.
“Yes.”
“Could you give us a little reassurance about it?” Sonata asked meekly.
“Like what?” Script asked. 
“Well, like, a map maybe?” Sonata suggested.
“I don’t need a map,” Script replied bluntly. 
“Oh,” Sonata said, brought up short. “It’s just... I’d feel a little better if we had some idea of—“
“We’re going to a nearby town I know of,” Script interrupted sharply. “I’ve told you that I know where to go.”
“What effective range does that succendum field have again?” Sunset asked icily, giving Script the kind of look that burns.
“Effective maximum range of three kilometres in open air I would say,” Script said speculatively. “Depends on the model of generator they’re using.”
“And how effective is it underground?”
“Getting ideas?” Script asked in a bored tone of voice. “Go ahead. Try your luck. My offer to help with her problem still stands, though.”
“You’ve told me that you think it’s impossible,” Sunset reminded him scornfully.
“True,” Script said, a slightly twisted smile curving the corners of his mouth. “But what is science if not the pursuit of the impossible?”
“Are you a scientist?” Sunset asked, surprised. “You struck me more as a record keeper.”
“Oh!” Script cried suddenly. “Ouch. That was a low blow. As a matter of fact,” he said in a more dignified voice, “I’m an historian.”
“Record keeper,” Sunset whispered to Sonata, who snickered.
“Historians pursue the truth,” Script went on in a slightly louder voice. “It’s a well respected profession where I’m from. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
“Oh please,” Sunset scoffed. “Like a pony who hides in a hole underground, stealing books from an abandoned castle, has any room to declare what I’m able to understand.”
“It’s not technically theft if no one owns them,” Script replied idly as they turned a corner. 
“I don’t like you,” Sunset told him.
“Shocking.”
After a few moments of tense silence, Sonata spoke up, apparently trying to dispel the awkwardness.
“So um... the Nightlands? Does that mean that, like, it’s always night there?” she asked.
“No. But it’s never day.”
“That makes no sense,” Sunset said flatly.
“The ponies of the Nightlands suffer when exposed to direct sunlight. Therefore the day time is constantly shrouded in twilight. Lots of pretty oranges and purples I hear. It’s a crime if you ask me, reducing something as fleeting and beautiful as Twilight to something that happens for hours every day.”
“What do you mean about the ponies there?” Sonata asked. “What’s wrong with sunlight?”
“You don’t even know about the plague?” Script laughed. “My word, you are out of the loop. That happened a good decade or so before the initial invasion, just as the Republic was conquering the Badlands. Led to a lot of political strife in Equestria I’ve heard.”
“The plague did?” Sunset asked, confused.
“Oh yes. As I said, a few changelings no doubt escaped, fleeing as refugees across the border. Since the plague hit about that time, a lot of the ponies in Equestria proper consider that the changelings brought it with them. They were probably right too.”
“And why would that cause political problems?” Sonata asked, bewildered.
“Because the Princess of the Night offered them sanctuary.” He gave a little chuckle and shook his head. “How many stories have to be written about bleeding heart leaders being overthrown before the world finally catches on?”
“How long do these tunnels go on for?” Sonata asked quickly, changing the subject and pre-empting what she was sure to be a furious retort, given the sudden tightness in Sunset’s jaw.
“I’ve not explored them fully,” Script admitted, looking around as though he might see a floor map affixed to one of the walls. “As far as the northern edge of no-man’s land, I know that much.”
“And which way is the Nightlands?”
“The Nightlands occupy roughly the south-western third of Equestria. Last Light, the seat of the Night Princess, is situated on the northern-most tip of the border. That, incidentally, is where we’ll eventually be going.”
“Oh. Neat.” Sonata said with false good humour. Sunset looked around to find Sonata shooting her nervous side-glances, and suddenly she felt guilty. How could she be letting her feelings of enmity towards Script make her forget Sonata’s burden?
“How are you doing?” Sunset asked. She raised a hoof and gave the pendant around Sonata’s neck a playful knock. “I remember Adagio nearly taking my hand off when I went to touch hers.”
Sonata grinned. “Oh, you have no idea. More like your whole arm. Which she’d then have clubbed you to death with.”
Sunset laughed. “It’s so weird, thinking how much she and Aria changed after that whole bands thing.”
“Them? What about me?” Sonata asked, raising her eyebrows.
“You didn’t change that much,” Sunset said with a shrug.
“Huh?” Sonata yelped. “But I was, like, evil and tried to take over the world. And said mean things to you.” She paused, and then said in a worried tone. “Do I say mean stuff to you?”
Sunset grinned and nuzzled her. “You’re so adorable. I’m just teasing you. Although,” Sunset gave her a knowing look. “You were still beautiful back then. That didn’t change much.”
“I am adorable,” Sonata conceded, giving her chin a rub. “I suppose that’s why you took me in afterwards, huh?” She gave Sunset an innocent smile. “Trying to keep my cuteness all for yourself.”
Sunset raised on eyebrow. “You’re teasing me back, aren’t you? Well done.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Sonata inquired airily.
“Oh, stop,” Script groaned. “The sexual tension is crushing me over here. When we find somewhere to camp, you two can find a nice bush to cosy yourselves in.” He paused, and then snickered. “Heh. Bush. I nearly didn’t catch that one.”
Sonata turned redder than an entire punnet of strawberries. Sunset’s cheeks too went pink, but managed to stop herself from stammering like a babbling idiot as she said.
“Keep your lewd fantasies to yourself.”
“I don’t like this,” Script muttered, as though not hearing Sunset’s last comment.
“Are you going to tell us what you don’t like?” Sunset grumbled irritably when he didn’t elaborate.
They’d come to stop in yet another high-rising system of interconnecting tunnels. In the light of Script’s and Sunset’s lit horns, they saw a number of dark holes in the blue and green-tinged walls. Script was eyeing one in particular two levels up, shining his horn’s light on it like a search beam.
“That tunnel wasn’t there before,” he said ominously.
“What? You mean it’s new?” Sunset asked, the annoyance vanishing from her voice as tense interest replaced it. 
“If I’m not much mistaken, it is,” he replied quietly.
There was a pause as they all contemplated this disquieting notion.
“Well, we haven’t come across any changelings yet,” Sunset said robustly. “Are we almost out?”
“Yes, the exit is just a short way ahead,” Script answered perfunctorily, as though he wasn’t really hearing her. 
“At the very least we know these tunnels aren’t much frequented, right?” Sunset asked, giving him a sharp look.
“Perhaps,” Script whispered speculatively, almost as though speaking to himself. “But then it’s possibly...” He lapsed into silence. 
Sunset waited for him to go on, but when he didn’t, she turned to Sonata, who still hadn’t said a word since turning red.
“What do you think?” Sunset asked her. “Sonata? Sonata, are you listening?”
Sonata wasn’t looking at her. She didn’t seem to be listening to her either. To Sunset’s bewilderment, Sonata seemed to be entirely focused in staring at the floor. Sunset looked instinctively to where Sonata’s eyes were fixed, half-expecting there to be something written there given how intently Sonata’s eyes were fixed upon it; but there was nothing. But that was when Sunset became properly frightened. If it hadn’t been for the near total darkness, Sunset was sure she wouldn’t have noticed, but there was the merest trace of red marring the blue and green light.
“Sonata?” Sunset said, her throat suddenly dry. “What are you doing?”
“I see something down there,” Sonata said wistfully, not looking up. 
“What is she babbling about?” Script asked, turning around with a scowl. Then he noticed the light too. “What is she doing?” Apparently insensible to this, Sonata raised a hoof. Script gasped. “Stop her!”
“Sonata, don’t—!” Sunset cried, but too late. 
A resounding, echoing crack burst through the tunnel, bouncing back and forth until everything became deathly silent. All of them remained entirely still for a full three seconds. 
“You foolish little—“ 
Then the floor gave in, and they fell, screaming, into the dark depths below.
Sunset had barely gotten out the opening note of her high-pitched ululation, when a sudden impact knocked the breath out of her. The floor they had been standing on had only been a few feet above another below them. Picking herself up gingerly, she shook the dust and debris from her coat and blinked hard. 
“Is everyone okay?” she asked, sparking her horn again. When no one answered, she peered around to see where they were, and nearly jumped out of her skin with shock. 
“Stop screaming!” Script roared. “Spirits preserve me, I forgot how much mares scream.”
“B-B-But...” Sunset stared, her nerves beginning to calm. “Oh, it’s just... me.”
Sunset was staring into the black surface of a large, flat glass. Backing up slightly, the light from her horn revealed it to be an enormous crystal structure, wedged diagonally into the floor of the chamber like a toppling pillar mid-fall. When Script flared his horn too, Sunset found that they were in some kind of six-sided earthen chamber, with an arrangement of flat stones to make the floor. The crystal, the true colour of which couldn’t be made out in the dual lights, reached from floor to ceiling, casting reflections of blue and green across the room. A clip-clopping sound made Script and Sunset turn, both of their lights shining, to fall on Sonata, who took no notice of either of them.
“No you don’t!” Script snarled. Bands of blue energy looped from the tip of his horn, and wrapped like glowing ribbons around Sonata’s legs and neck, pulling her back, but still she seemed insensible to it.
Sunset didn’t understand what was happening. “It’s just a dead storage crystal. Sonata, what are you seeing?”
“It’s been so long,” Sonata said faintly, straining against her bonds. “I’d almost forgotten what the taste was like...”
“Sonata, snap out of it!” Sunset cried, pulling her face around to look at her. “There’s nothing in it, it’s dead.”
“No, it’s not!” Script said in a constricted voice. He gave a tug on the ribbons, but he seemingly couldn’t stop Sonata moving. It didn’t surprise Sunset much; Sonata wasn’t unusually strong, but Script had the frame of someone who neither ate nor exercised much; his hooves slid and slipped on the smooth stones. “The crystal has been forced into dormancy.”
“Dormancy? But why?” Sunset asked, trying to hold Sonata back herself.
“I don’t want to find out. Filthy changelings could have booby trapped it for all we know.”
Sunset didn’t immediately respond to this, but managed to shove Sonata back a little way. She had no love for changelings, but she wasn’t the sort of pony to go around speaking about those she didn’t like as Script was doing. “Let’s get out of here. Can you still find the way?”
“I should think so. We’re only a floor down,” Script said. “What in the world is making her so entranced with that crystal?” he grunted, yanking the magical restraints.
Sunset wondered that as well. When Sonata had had her pendant before, she’d absorbed magic and negative emotions to grow stronger and sow discord in her surroundings. Once powerful enough, she’d been able to charm and hypnotise hundreds of people to do her bidding. But as far as she knew, none of the sirens had been able to use love as power for them gems. Nor had any of them been mysteriously drawn to things in this strange, hypnotic way. It made no sense...
“Halt!” barked a voice from behind them.
Sunset’s head snapped to the source, a tunnel entrance opposite the massive crystal, where two ponies in shining armour were standing in aggressive stances. One in a red tunic was holding a sword in its mouth, and the other, wearing purple, shone a sickly green light into the room that cast distorted shadows across the walls. 
“Disengage your magic and give yourselves up!” the stallion in purple ordered, his smooth silver armour glinting as he stepped forward. “In the name of the Republic, I hereby place you under arrest for trespass and espionage!”


- To be Continued